The Mormon Candidate - a Novel (41 page)

Chapter 45

The first thing Ben felt was a twitch, or a sting, a prelude to the horrible jolt he knew was coming
. B
u
t
Rex was swift, tugging on the wires
before the full blast of electric current passed through
. The
clamps
slipped
off
of
Ben’s earlobes. The two
ends
touched each other,
causing a
n
eruption of fireworks
. Rex flipped back the switch, ending the show, which left a cloud of smoke
.

“Wimp,” Streep said. “Why did you do that?”

Rex untangled the wires.
“
Because
I think he’s
telling the truth.”

“I am,” Ben said. “
There’s
four years of
my
reporting
, right there
on the Internet! Why don’t you look me up?
Ben Teller.
Mostly on
NewZonLine.com
, but I’ve had stuff i
n the
Baltimore Sun
and the
Washington Post
.
”

Rex got an iPad from the other room and spent a few minutes on the site. “When
you approached me
at the pier
,
I
thought you
were
work
ing
for them
.”
He
pushed away the dolly with the car batteries.

“Based on what?”

“The fact that you were able to find me at North Point, the questions you asked me
about Zachariah—you obviously knew a lot about his private life. And
the location of your meeting with Dr. Neibauer
implied secret cooperation
.
Your actions hardly fit the facade of an unemployed news reporter.”

“Self-employed.”

“Anyway, that’s why we decided to pick you up and question you about their plans.”

Dreyfuss
opened a window.
“Are
n’t
you a
Mormon
?”

“I’m Jewish, though not
very
religious
.
Aren’t you Mormons?”

“
E
x-Mormons,” Rex said.

“Axed-Mormons,” Streep corrected him.

“We’re
a
postates,” Powell said, “tempted away by Satan.”

“Idealists,” Rex said
,
“
is what we are. Our mission is to expose the ugly practices of the LDS Church.
Zachariah
had information we wanted
.
We
tried
to obtain his cooperation, but
the
Ghost got
to him first
.”

“I don’
t understand
,” Ben said. “A
ren’t you
the
Ghost on the
white Ducati?”

“Mine is a decoy.” Rex untied him. “
If you look closely, what I’m riding is a
beat
-
up
749
. The
real Ghost is
riding
a
brand new
Ducati
Monster 848
. Check your photos.”

“Weren’t you at the
overlook
?
Didn’t you kick me in the face?
”

“Not me, though I can
sympathize with whoever found it
irresistible to kick you real hard
.”

“
Second that
,” Streep said.

“Get dressed before you freeze.”
Rex
pointed at Ben’s
riding gear
. “
I dr
ove
by the
overlook
while
following Dr. Neibauer
and
took
the
photo of the three of you
,
but had to keep
going
or you’d have noticed me
.”

“I
did notice
the
pickup truck
go by
.”

“That’s why I driv
e a common model.”
Rex
chuckled.
“Okay. Tell us the whole story from the beginning.”

Ben told them
how he had noticed
Porter
remove a
floppy disk
from the body
, about his own initial search that uncovered the iTouch and some debris from the Harley, including the gas
tank cap. He described the main parts of the journal, Porter’s denial of finding a floppy disk on Zachariah’s body,
Ironman
Cycles and tracking down Rex, the piece of Radio Shack packaging he found on the cliff, and the kick in the forehead. He described the deer
hit
, the discovery of a second floppy disk inside the gas tank on Zachariah’s destroyed Harley, and the information shared by the attorney, Ginsburg. “Then I chased your white Ducati into a trap.”

They looked at each other and laughed.

“It’s not funny,” Ben said. “And by the way, why did you follow
the psychiatrist
?”

“Dr. Neibauer
,” Dreyfuss explained
,
“
is the LD
S point man for handling troublemakers.
He’s licensed to practice psychiatry in every state
with
a
substantial Mormon population
—Utah,
Arizona,
Nevada, California, Idaho, Colorado, Massachusetts, as well as
Washington
,
DC
,
and the
region—Maryland, Virginia,
and
West Virginia
.
”

“And the military,” Streep said. “He’s authorized to treat members of the army, navy, air force, FBI, CIA, NSA, and
c
ongressional staff.”

“Correct,” Dreyfuss said. “For decades, young Mormons have been instructed by their bishops to pursue government careers in preparation for the day
when
, as Joseph Smith prophesied,
‘the C
onstitution will hang by a thread
’
and
Mormons will take over the reins of the US government.”

“He said that?” Ben pulled on his riding pants.

“Smith and every succeeding president of the LDS Church have been telling the
s
aints that they are destined to take over the United States, then the whole world.”

“I see why they need a psychiatrist.”

“He doesn’t treat the leadership,” Dreyfuss said.

“Maybe he should.” Ben
pulled on his
jacket
. “Who does he treat?”

“Rank and file,” Dreyfuss said. “
When a
s
aint
defies
the leadership, Neibauer is called in. Usually the problem is solved by convincing the man or the woman—most of them are women—that the problem
i
s
their mental health.”

“Why women?”

“
Mormon
men are kings
,”
Streep said
. “As boys, they
are elevated to priesthood
,
ordained into the
Aaronic
Priesthood
, then
the
Me
lchizedek
Priesthood.
They’
re called
e
lder
s
before some of them even
need to shave.
The
women
, however,
remain servants
of the men. Their
destiny
is
childbearing,
cooking, cleaning,
washing
—
everything
to improve
their
chance
s
of
convincing their husbands
to take them to
the
heavenly
afterlife
of
the Celestial Kingdom
. A woman can only
achieve
eternal
exaltation by the grace of
her
husband
.”

“Let me guess,” Ben said. “Your husband
decided
he’d rather
spend his eternal
afterlife without you.”

“
M
y husband
beat me almost to death
because I sought help for our daughter
after I found him in her bed one night. The ER doctor didn’t call the police. He called o
ur bishop
, who came to the hospital to pray with me and tell me
that it was my fault
if
my husband was
n’t
satisfied sexually. He instructed me t
o forgive my husband and
serve him better so that he wouldn’t have to seek other outlets for his natural urges
. When I threw a fit,
they
called Dr. Neibauer.”

“
How did that go
?” Ben z
ipped up his jacket, still shaking with cold.

“
He committed me to t
he Emma Smith Sana
torium for Women
while my husband—a prominent LDS leader and b
usinessman—continued to force our
eldest
daughter to
serve
him
until she ran away
. He
moved on
to our second daughter
, a thirteen-year-old
. She ended up
pregnant, and her older sister came back and took her
to California
for
an abortion
.
”

“I’m sorry,” Ben said.

“Me too.” She wiped tears.
“They’re both okay now,
at least as okay as they can be
after
suffering multiple
rape
s
by their daddy.”

“
Now I feel bad for
biting you.”

She waved in dismissal. “Do you know that
, thanks to women,
Utah
holds the record among
all
other
states
in
prescription anti-depressants?”

“I didn’t know t
hat.”
Ben
glanced at the dark windows. “
But it reminds me that my girlfriend must be going crazy with worry.
Can I have
my iPhone?”

Chapter 46

Curled up on the living room sofa at Fran and Lilly’s apartment,
Keera
held
her iPhone to her chest
as she fell asleep
. She
dreamed she
was on the back of Ben’s motorcycle, which
beca
me airborne, flying high over Wa
shington
,
DC, then coming in for
a
land
ing
on top of the White House
, where
guards
spr
a
ng out from hiding with
machine guns that
didn’t shoot bullets but
lightning strikes
in
string-like
flashes of
electrical currents that hit her chest with strange
vibrations
and woke her up. It was the iPhone, which she had put on vibrate to avoid waking up Fran and Lilly. Ben’s smiling face
appeared on the screen, filling her with a mix of relief and dread
. W
ould she hear his voice when she answered or
a police officer
telling her about an accident
—

“Keera?”

“It’s you!” She
ran to the bathroom and closed the door.

“I’m sorry,” Ben said. “I couldn’t call
earlier.
”